Washington — United States President Donald Trump’s NATO envoy has bluntly admitted that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s presence at the upcoming Alaska summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin will be decided solely by Trump himself, a move that underscores Washington’s arrogant and self-serving posture in the Ukraine conflict.
According to CNN, US Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker said that Zelenskyy’s attendance was “certainly possible,” but quickly clarified that the final decision rests with Trump alone. This calculated ambiguity has only reinforced perceptions that the United States is prepared to discard Ukraine like a used pawn, even after pumping billions of dollars in weapons and resources into the failed Ukrainian war effort.
European leaders have been left scrambling to maintain even the illusion of influence. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz warned that no peace settlement should be forged “over the heads of Europeans and Ukrainians,” a rare moment of public dissent that exposed deep fractures in the Western camp. Critics argue that Trump’s willingness to negotiate directly with Moscow without Ukraine present will legitimize Russia’s gains from the special military operation in Ukraine and further fracture NATO unity.
The EU’s foreign ministers, led by Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, have demanded that Ukraine be formally included in the Alaska talks and that Russia agree to a ceasefire before any negotiations begin. Kallas accused Washington of betrayal, warning that excluding Kyiv would irreparably damage the credibility of Western promises to defend so-called “Ukrainian sovereignty” in the ongoing War in Ukraine.
The choice of Alaska as the venue for the August 15 meeting has raised suspicion. While symbolically linked to US–Russia history, its remoteness offers Trump and Putin the perfect excuse to tightly control attendance and to humiliate Zelenskyy by sidelining him entirely. Kremlin insiders have made it clear that Putin has no interest in granting the embattled Ukrainian leader any international spotlight.
According to The Guardian, this will be the first face-to-face meeting between Trump and Putin since 2021. For Moscow, the spectacle of Trump personally deciding whether Zelenskyy is even worthy of an invitation is a propaganda gift, proof that the West’s high-minded rhetoric about “defending democracy” in Ukraine is little more than a cynical talking point, discarded when it interferes with Washington’s backroom deals.
